


The Second Principle of Magic

by PanicFOB



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Harry isn't a Horcrux or the chosen one, Language, Lily and James don't die, Muggle Reader, POV Alternating, POV Second Person, Set in the late 1980s, Voldemort actually lost in the first war, somewhat AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2020-10-04 21:28:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 17,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20477735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanicFOB/pseuds/PanicFOB
Summary: You’ve lived a perfectly ordinary life for twenty-seven years, but the night that you spot a large dog transforming into a man changes everything about your reality. You seek answers to the mysterious occurrence, and you get more than you bargained for with a charming man named Sirius Black.





	1. Animagus.

**Author's Note:**

> A Harry Potter fanfic? What? I know it seems crazy, but HP was actually my first introduction into fanfiction. And believe it or not, Sirius Black was the first love of my life before I ever met the swoon-worthy Bucky Barnes. So, this one is for every woman who is still waiting for Padfoot to sweep her off her feet.

You cursed your roommate as you dug through your purse looking for any cash but finding only old receipts. She had asked to borrow some money, promising to put it back the next day. You should have known better than to trust that she would keep her word. Now, you were out late in the evening, walking the dingy streets of London without any money to pay for a cab. These were the sorts of situations you had always been told to avoid as a woman. This was a recipe for getting attacked in a dark alley or worse.

You took a moment to calm yourself, and then you quickly mapped out the quickest route back to your flat. If you walked very quickly, you thought you might be able to get home in under ten minutes. You tightened your coat, trying to ignore the crisp February air and the way it was making your teeth chatter. You held your purse closely, tucking it snug under your arm in an effort to prevent any muggers from snatching it out of your grasp. Not that it contained any money for them to steal.

You wondered for a moment how exactly you had ended up here in this shit situation. You hated your roommate. She constantly took advantage of your inability to be unkind to anyone. Whatever she asked you for, whether it be money or food or doing her laundry, you found yourself saying yes while silently wishing she were dead. Every single time, your brain urged you to tell her to go fuck herself, but your mouth forced a smile.

You were a bloody doormat, and it was your parents’ fault really. They had taught you from a young age to not be disagreeable, to not be confrontational. It might have gotten you through school without getting into an ounce of trouble, but it the adult world, this attitude of passiveness sometimes sucked dreadfully.

It was how you found yourself working at a job that you hated. Your parents had suggested it, and you wouldn’t dare say no to their whims. They assured you that working for a Chemist was a perfectly exciting and prestigious thing to do. Perhaps for some people, that was true, but every day at work for you was a drag. You stayed there, though, for nearly ten years you had been doing the same thing day-in and day-out. You couldn’t possibly imagine abruptly quitting and walking away; that would be too disagreeable.

You turned down a small, hidden street that was a shortcut to your flat. You were only four minutes away now. At the other end of the road, you noticed a tall gangly man walking alongside his large black dog. You stayed far enough back from him to ensure that he wouldn’t notice you. You didn’t trust anyone on London streets at night.

A few moments later, something rather strange happened, and, well, you weren’t sure you could even explain it despite it happening right before your eyes. The large black dog was no longer a dog at all. He was a man with long black hair walking alongside his friend. He wasn’t as tall as the other fellow, and the way he walked was more of a strut. You took notice for the first time just how odd their clothing was. They both wore dark purple cloaks that you thought suited a Halloween costume. But it was February.

“Padfoot, I’ve told you to quit doing that in public. Someone could see.” You heard the gangly one say.

“Prongs, you’ve been spending far too much time with your goody-two-shoes wife.”

“We’re not in Hogwarts anymore, Sirius. We’re Aurors. And both of us could be stripped of our titles if anyone ever found out we had illegally become animagi.”

The one that had been a dog slowly turned around in a circle, and you had to dive behind a dumpster to keep him from spotting you. “There’s no one around. See James? Just relax.”

“Fine, fine. Just please don’t transform in public again, Pads. Especially not in muggle London.”

You were trying to follow along to their conversation, but many of their words sounded like complete nonsense to you. You had never known any part of this city to be referred to as ‘muggle London.’ And what in the actual fuck was a ‘Hogwarts?’

“You going to Dumbledore’s birthday party this year?” the longhaired one asked his taller friend.

“Kind of have to, don’t we? I mean, we’re sort of indebted to him for the rest of eternity.”

“Fair point,” the man agreed.

So, Dumbledore was a man’s name? How odd.

Once the two men came to the point where this small road intersected with the main one, the tall one spoke to his companion once again. “Well, this is the end of our patrol. Ready Pads?”

“Ready Prongs.”

There was a loud pop, and then they had both disappeared. You blinked your eyes rapidly, studying the spot where they had been a second before. You hadn’t been drinking, and you had gotten plenty of sleep the night before, so you weren’t delirious. The only explanation was that you were going mad. You had to be. There was no possible way in all of reality that a dog could just turn into a man or that two men could just pop out of existence.

You rushed home, taking only two more minutes before you were quickly unlocking your front door. You let out a shaky breath that you hadn’t realized you’d been holding. This night was utterly strange. You half suspected you would wake up in the morning to find it had all been a dream.

Before going to bed, you sat at your desk and quickly jotted down all the strange words you could remember from the conversation you had overheard. You had no idea how to spell any of the words, so you simply took a guess based on what they sounded like. You planned to go to the local library and do some intensive research into these mysterious topics on your next day off. For now, this strange event would have to go unexplained.


	2. Apparition.

Sirius groaned and buried his face into the pillow when his alarm clock started blaring. Another grueling day at the Aurors’ office was ahead of him. He liked his job most of the time when there were plenty of bad guys to chase down and apprehend. However, he did not like boring days at his desk tackling the increasingly large stack of paperwork.

“Oh, will you shut it off already?!” he heard Remus shout from the main room.

“Moony, can’t I call in, just this once?” Sirius whined into the pillowcase.

“You just called in last week. If you don’t show up today, Prongs will be over here to have your head.” The voice was closer now, and Sirius figured his friend was standing in the doorway, probably giving him the most disapproving of looks. “And for merlin’s sake, can’t you at least sleep with some pants on? Nobody wants to see your pale arse first thing in the morning.”

Remus evidently turned the alarm off with his wand because all was calm in Sirius world once again. He heard his friend’s footsteps wander off to the kitchen, and he snuggled deeper into his bed in the hopes of returning to slumber.

Sirius awoke again to an article of clothing being tossed aggressively at his head.

“Ouch,” he muttered, reaching up to rub the spot it had hit.

“It’s like you haven’t aged a day since seventh year. How am I still the one in charge of making sure you get to your responsibilities on time?”

“There’s nothing wrong with being young at heart, Rem. And you’re the one that suggested we be flatmates to cut costs, if I recall correctly.”

He could practically hear the eye roll he knew was coming from Remus without even having to lift his face from the warm pillow and look.

“If you don’t get out of bed in the next five seconds, I’m flooing James.”

Sirius jumped up and grabbed the boxers Remus had thrown at his head. “I’m going, I’m going. No need for drastic measures.”

“Right… well, I’m calling him anyway because I have to leave for work in five minutes, and I don’t trust you not to go right back to bed the moment I’m gone.”

“I think you’ve been hanging out with Lily too much as well. None of you lot is any fun anymore,” Sirius grumbled as he attempted to pull his trousers on and ended tripping to the floor.

Sirius could tell that Remus was pointedly ignoring him because he didn’t hear anything else out of the man except a loud pop when he disappeared for work.

The day was just as grueling as Sirius had suspected. Sometimes, in the stupidest parts of Sirius’ mind, he missed the war. There had never been a day at work back then that hadn’t been exciting and filled with risks. They were bringing in Death Eaters left and right, and Sirius felt useful and productive. He had been helping the cause. Now, most of the time he was arresting drunk wizards after they started shooting off spells in front of muggles.

He managed to get through two whole mission reports by the end of the day. He only had fifty-seven more to go. It wasn’t he and James’ assigned night to patrol, so he contemplated what to do with his evening. Sirius knew there wouldn’t be much to eat at the flat because it had been his turn to do the shopping, and, well, he had sort of forgotten. His best option seemed to be grabbing a bite at a pub and perhaps sipping a few beers in order to forget about this mind-numbingly dull day.

Sirius never went to The Leaky or The Broomsticks when he was out by himself. He found he enjoyed muggle bars the most, and he only stepped foot in wizarding establishments when all his friends were having a celebratory night together. He wandered down the streets of London, preferring to walk rather than apparate. Winter had always been his favorite season, and the chilly air revived him after the dreadful office had sucked out his soul very much like a dementor.

He ended up at a pub that he had spotted on his patrol with James last night. He was halfway through a pint and a mince pie when he felt a bony finger poke the back of his left shoulder. He turned to find that it was a woman. A very attractive woman. A very drunk woman. He quirked his eyebrow at her in question.

“You, mister, you are a dog,” she slurred at him with a drunken grin.

He groaned internally. This must have been one of his few drunken one-night stands that he had sort of forgotten. Now she was here to scold him about the horrible way in which he treats women.

“Look, I was going to ring you, I swear,” he said with his hands up in surrender.

“Ring me? What are you on about?”

“I could ask you the same thing. Why are you calling me a dog?”

She practically fell into the barstool next to him. “I saw you last night. You were a dog. A large black one. And then… and then you were a man. A handsome man.” Sirius had been taking a swig of his beer when she told him this. He snorted a good amount of it up his nose in panic.

He grabbed her arm earnestly. “What did you just say?”

She narrowed her eyes at his firm grip on her. “I said you were walking next to your friend as a dog and then you transformed into a man. And then… here’s the real weird part, you and your friend both disappeared into thin air with a loud popping noise.”

Sirius had no idea how to handle this. He eventually decided that denial would be the best plan of action. “You’re drunk, lady. And insane. You’re talking absolute rubbish.”

She giggled crazily. “Me talking rubbish? I believe that was you last night. Mind explaining to me what a Hogwarts is?”

“Shit, you heard that as well?” Sirius muttered under his breath. “This is really bad.”

“What’s bad? That I found out about your special doggy powers?”

He gave the silly woman a seething look before throwing down some cash to pay for his meal and marching out of the pub.

“Wait up!” Merlin, why was she following him?

“Just leave me alone! You’re imagining things!” he called out over his shoulder. And then Sirius did probably the second stupidest thing in the span of twenty-four hours: he disapparated right there in front of her, again.


	3. Squib.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might have come for the HP fic, but I write MCU fics as well. Go check those out too, please :)

You awoke with a hangover after your long night at the pub. You were more certain than ever of what you had seen that man do. One time could have been dismissed as a moment of hallucination, but he had disappeared the same way again last night. Yes, you had been drunk, but you still remembered that loud pop very clearly. Not to mention, the man had gotten very defensive when you questioned him about his strange abilities.

After a breakfast of beans, toast, and earl grey to clear your mind, you headed off to the library to get some concrete answers. You searched through encyclopedias and history texts for any of the nonsensical words you had written down. You even tried asking the librarian if she knew anything about them. She merely shook her head and looked at you like you were mad.

A couple of hours passed with no luck from the bookshelves. It was when you stumbled upon files of old newspaper clippings that your hope returned. Years ago, in some low-budget newspaper, there had been a weekly article called “Marty’s Magical Rants.” The man claimed to be a squib, which the article explained was a non-magical person born to magical parents. He apparently detested wizards and witches and wrote all his complaints about them in this article. It was clear that the editors didn’t actually believe his crazy stories and that they only published them for entertainment value. What made your eyes bug out of your head, though, was the supposed name of the wizarding school Marty’s magical siblings had attended: Hogwarts.

At first, you tried to write it off as a coincidence, but when you read that the headmaster of the school went by the name Dumbledore, you knew that you were on to something here. You looked all over the newspaper for Marty’s personal contact information, but you came up empty-handed. You pocketed the clipping and any others that contained Marty’s articles before heading back to your flat.

Several phone calls to the newspaper office led you to the information that Marty had passed away last year. That… was really sad… and also a major setback in your research. You inquired into Marty’s surviving family members, but the people at the newspaper didn’t seem to have any information about the man’s personal life outside of what he wrote in the articles.

That night, you were a restless mess. You had tried reading a book or watching the telly, but you felt like you were on the verge of some miraculous discovery. There was magic in this world. It existed in some secret society, and that dog-man was part of it. You were sure of it now. You just had to think of a way to find him again and corner him until he told the truth. You figured it might be a little difficult to corner a wizard, especially one that could just disappear with a magical pop.

Suddenly, it occurred to you: that night you had first seen the two men, they had said they were on patrol. What were the chances that they might be ‘patrolling’ again in the same area? You dressed in some warm clothes in preparation for the freezing night air, packed your purse with a pocket knife and pepper spray for self-defense, and made sure to grab some extra cash in case you had to make a quick getaway in a cab. You walked the five minutes to where you remembered seeing them before, hid behind a smelly rubbish bin, and waited.

Your plan had apparently been a good one. The two wizards did not disappoint. They came rounding the corner of the street only a few moments later, chatting about some man named Remus. You waited until they were very close to your hiding spot, and then you jumped out and shouted “Ah hah!”

The gangly one pointed a wooden stick at you.

The long-haired one simply cursed. “Merlin’s beard, you are relentless woman.”

“Sirius, you know this crazy woman?”

“I’m not crazy, thanks. I’m simply on to you. I know about your magic.”

The gangly one rounded on his friend. “What is she talking about, Padfoot?” he hissed.

Sirius or Padfoot or whatever his actual name was looked quite guilty. “She might have seen me transform out of my dog form the other night, and then she saw us disapparate.”

“And then I saw you disapparate again outside the pub last night.”

He shot her a dirty look.

“Sirius, I’m literally going to kill you. This is exactly what I had been warning you about.”

“James, it’s fine. She’s not going to tell anyone. You’re not going to tell anyone, right?”

“I’ll promise not to only if you give me answers about exactly what is going on.”

“What? No.” This was the tall one, James, addressing you now. “Look, non-magic people such as yourself are never supposed to know anything about the magical world. We could get in serious trouble with our boss for even having this conversation with you right now.” He turned to Sirius again. “Pads, we ought to just obliviate her right now.”

You yanked your pocket knife out of your purse, and said, “I don’t know what obliviate means, but if you try to do anything to me I promise you you’ll end up with a knife in your throat.”

“Merlin, she is mad,” James said.

“Maybe Remus will know what to do. We should ask him.”

“This isn’t Hogwarts, Sirius. We’re the Aurors here. We can’t rely on Moony to get us out of all our problems.”

“Oh, I know all about Hogwarts,” you told them, still pointing the knife in their direction.

“Impossible,” said James.

You dug through your purse again, pulling out the newspaper clippings. You handed them over to Sirius, and he began reading some of the lines aloud to his friend. “How did the ministry never find out about this? This is a major breach of the statute of secrecy.”

The two men stepped away from you and whispered amongst themselves. You stood there waiting for their decision on what to do with your knowledge of their world. Finally, Sirius walked back over to you.

“Can you meet us at that same pub tomorrow night? We’ll most likely have our friend Remus with us, and then we’ll answer any questions that you might have about magic, but we will have to make you take a magical vow swearing that you won’t tell any of these secrets to your muggle friends.”

“Muggle? Is that some sort of insult?”

“Of course not. It just means non-magical people. So, will you be there tomorrow?”

There was no doubt in your mind, you had to meet these men again to find out more about their magic.

“Yeah.”

He handed you back the clippings that he had read through. “I’m Sirius, by the way,” he said as he offered you his hand to shake.

You took it and felt a pleasant pulse of energy under your fingertips. “I’m Y/N.”

That electric feeling in your hand never faded even after James and Sirius were long gone.


	4. Butterbeer.

Sirius’ hand had been tingling all day long. He tried taking a calming draught, thinking the tingling was from nerves or just being all wound up in general over the muggle woman to whom he had accidentally revealed magic. But the calming draught did nothing for the pulsing sensation in his right hand. He asked Moony about it, for his friend rarely came across something magical that he couldn’t explain, but he was at a loss as well.

“What exactly does it feel like? Explain it to me.”

“I told you, Rem. It almost feels like my hand has extra energy in it. It’s like pulsing and tingling and just completely distracting me. I can’t seem to think about anything else but this odd feeling coursing through my palm and fingers.”

“And when did it begin?”

“I dunno. Last night, I guess. After I…”

“After what?”

“After I shook Y/N’s hand…”

“Y/N is the muggle woman we’re meeting at the pub tonight, right?”

“Yeah. There’s definitely something unusual about the situation. I mean, what are the odds that’d I’d run into her two nights in a row. And then, for her to come across those articles written by that squib. It just seems like something is working to push her into the wizarding world, despite her not having magic.”

“Then maybe you’re meant to be her magical tour guide, Pads.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, something isn’t just pushing her into the wizarding world, it’s pushing her into you. If she’s gonna know about magic, you should be the one to teach her.”

Sirius thought Remus’ line of thought made a lot of sense. He felt responsible for this woman. He wanted her to learn about all the joy that comes entwined in magic, and he thought it would be really sad if the ministry found out about the situation now and had her obliviated. He had to make sure that didn’t happen. He had to make her appreciate the world of wonder that he and his friends lived in.

When he, James, and Remus arrived at the pub that night, Y/N was already there. Before she noticed them at the entrance, she was sitting at a booth, sipping a glass of wine and frantically tapping her fingers on the table. Sirius wondered if she had thought they wouldn’t show up. She spotted them when they were halfway to her booth, and relief flashed across her face.

James went to the bar to get the three men a round of beers. Sirius and Remus went straight to the woman’s table.

Sirius nodded his head at her as he slid into the booth. “Y/N, good to see you again. This is our friend Remus. We all went to school together.”

“At Hogwarts? Hello Remus. Nice to meet you. She held her hand out for him to shake. Remus studied it for a moment, and Sirius knew what he was thinking. Remus was wondering if the same weird thing would happen to his hand that had happened to Sirius’. Eventually, he took her hand and gave it a quick shake.

“Okay,” Sirius warned her, “if you’re going to use words like that, you have to keep your voice down a bit.”

“Oh right,” she whispered still quite loudly, “because ‘muggles’ can’t know about it. Except for me of course.”

Sirius grinned a bit at the woman’s ridiculousness. “Right. Except for you. So, what do you want to know?”

“Uh, Sirius. Maybe we should wait until James comes over. That way we can all three decide if each question is one we should honestly answer.”

“Now wait just a minute,” Y/N said in a flustered tone, “you told me you would answer any questions that I had. You never said certain things would be off-limits.”

“She’s right Moony. I did say that.”

“Why do you call him Moony,” Y/N wondered.

“Ugh, it’s just a nickname from school. James is Prongs and I’m Padfoot.”

“Those are strange nicknames.”

“Well, mine actually relates to my… er, other form.”

Realization dawned on her. “Oh! Padfoot like a dog.”

“Yup,” Sirius couldn’t help but smile at how excited she was already getting to learn about all their magical secrets.

“Does that mean…” she looked at Remus, “that you and James also turn into animals?”

Remus shot Sirius a glare for bringing up this subject. “Yes, but I’m not divulging which animals.”

“Can everyone in your world do that?”

“Nope,” Sirius said arrogantly, “it’s a very difficult skill to master.”

“Padfoot, please tell me we’re not already on the subject of your sex life,” James whined as he set the three beers down on the table.

“You’re the one that brings up my sex life any chance you get, Jamie. Perhaps there’s something you need to share with the group.”

James rolled his eyes and took a swig of his pint. He made a face of disgust. “How you could ever prefer this over Butterbeer is beyond me, Pads.”

Sirius chugged his and wiped the froth from his upper lip with the back of his hand. “It’s delicious.”

“Butterbeer? Is that a magical drink?”

“Yup,” Remus answered her, “and James is right: it’s loads better than this rubbish.”

So, the onslaught of questions from the woman properly began. She asked them about the wooden stick James had pointed at her last night. She inquired about disapparation and Hogwarts. She wondered if there were special wizard shops for wizard things, and they informed her of places like Ollivander’s and Flourish and Blotts and Honeydukes.

“So, the only way you can be magic is to have magical parents?”

James told her about Lily and what exactly a muggle-born was, but the men deemed it wise not to go into any details about the prejudice that had gone on during the war against Voldemort. Sirius didn’t think this woman needed to worry about evil witches and wizards. He only wanted her to enjoy the good that magic could bring to people’s lives.

Remus and James went back to the bar to try to find a drink that tasted better than muggle beer, and Sirius looked down at his tingling right hand once again. He thought now might be a good time to bring it up.

“Last night, after we shook hands, did yours start to…” but he didn’t know how to finish his question without sounding mad.

“Pulse with energy? Yeah it’s still doing it now. Feels really weird. I thought you had done something to me with your magic.”

“No, I didn’t do anything. I’ve never known this to happen to anyone before, and neither Remus nor James have an explanation for it either.”

She furrowed her brows. “Well, it’s got to be the Second Principle of Magic, hasn’t it?”

Sirius raised his eyebrows. “You’ve known about wizards for two days; how do you already know a magical principle that I don’t?”

“It was written by a muggle, actually. James Frazer said ‘things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed.’ That’s the Second Principle of Magic.”

Sirius leaned back in the booth, feeling quite impressed. “Huh. And what’s the first principle?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I have no idea.”

He snorted just as he was taking a sip of his pint. After coming down from his coughing fit, he looked back and forth between his hand and Y/N, thinking hard about what she had said. “So, you’re saying that we’re connected somehow, still effecting each other even when we’re apart?”

“Could be, yeah. Four days ago, I was a realist. Now, anything is in the realm of possibility.”

He smiled at her and thought it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to be magically connected to this woman.


	5. Marauder's Map.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go follow me on Tumblr under the same username: PanicFOB. I'm currently taking requests to celebrate me nearly reaching 100 followers :)

You had given Sirius your phone number. He told you he didn’t have a phone, but he could find a way to ring you. He was supposed to be inviting you over to his flat at some point to allow you to browse Remus’ magical book collection. You were antsy to get his call, mostly because magic was still ninety percent mystery to you and you wanted to find out more, but another reason was that Sirius was incredibly fun to hang out and chat with. You had had such a smashing time at the pub the other night with him, and it wasn’t hard to admit how impossibly handsome he was either.

You knew he was a wizard and you were a ‘muggle,’ which meant he probably would never be interested in an ordinary woman like you, but you still held out hope that he might come to fancy you despite your lack of magic.

Every time your phone had rung, you had instantly gotten nervous, wondering if it could be Sirius, but it wasn’t until five days after that night in the pub that it was finally his voice on the line when you picked up.

“Ello?” he nearly shouted.

“Jesus, have you gone deaf, Sirius?”

“Sorry. It’s been a while since I’ve used one of these things.”

“What on earth do wizards use instead of telephones?”

“Owl post mostly. Patronus are handy too.”

“What…? You know what, I’m just gonna stop asking questions until I get my hands on those books you were telling me about. I’ve come to realize that you lot have weird ways of doing everything.”

“That’s mostly true, yeah. Anyway, the books are what I was calling you about. I have the day off, so if you want to come over and browse through our library all day, you can.”

“Okay, great! Let me just get a pen to write down your address.”

“No need. My flat is quite a ways away from your area of town. I’ll just pop over and pick you up.”

“But you don’t know where I live either…”

“I’m guessing it’s close to that pub, right?”

“Yeah, two blocks to the right. The apartment building with the red door.”

“Perfect. I’ll see you in,” he paused for a moment, clearly looking at the time, “one minute.”

“One minute?” you nearly shrieked. “I’m still in my pajamas.”

“Okay, fine. Five minutes. See you then.” He hung up before you could offer any more objections.

You raced to your wardrobe to throw on the first decent bits of clothing you could find. You brushed your teeth and your hair in record time, and you managed to even have a minute to dab on a small amount of makeup before someone was buzzing your flat.

“Come on up,” you told Sirius over the comm.

Thankfully, your annoying roommate was out of town, so you wouldn’t have to explain any of this to her. Even more fortunately, you had just thoroughly cleaned your entire flat the night before, so it actually looked presentable for company.

“Hi,” you said a bit breathlessly as you flung your front door open.

Sirius had his long hair tied back in a low bun. A few strands had fallen loose around his face. He wore a black leather jacket, and under that was a casual button-up shirt, but he had most of the top buttons undone and you could see at least a couple of tattoos peeking out. His grey eyes looked far more piercing in the daylight.

He glanced around your front room. “Nice place you got here.”

“Er, thanks,” you said awkwardly.

He held out his elbow for you. “Ready?”

You simply stared at it in confusion. “How exactly are we getting to your place?”

He smirked. “I think you should know the answer to that by now, love.”

You flushed at his use of the pet name. “Please tell me you’re not talking about that weird popping thing.”

“I am in fact talking about that weird popping thing.”

“But I’m not even magical. How do you expect me to do that?”

“Doesn’t matter. You just hold on tight to my arm, and I’ll be able to pull you along.”

You looked down at his offered arm hesitantly.

“Trust me, okay,” he said in a gentle and comforting voice.

You met his eye as you gripped his arm, and then you felt like you might suffocate as you experienced the sensation of being forced through a very small space. As quickly as it had begun, though, it was over. You stood in another flat, surprisingly not that different from your own.

“Welp,” Sirius spread his arms out in gesture, “this is it. This is Remus’ and my humble abode.”

“Huh, I thought it would be more…”

“Magical?”

“Precisely.”

“Eh, we have a few magical things laying around, but Remus and I love muggle stuff just as much as magic stuff.”

“Really? I didn’t think boring muggle stuff would be interesting at all to you.”

He offered you tea and showed you to the bookcase. You began with the reasonable choice of A History of Magic. You carried it over to their old and comfy looking couch, kicked off your shoes and sat with your legs crossed and the book resting in your lap. Sirius returned from the kitchen a few minutes later with two steaming mugs of tea. You had already made it through the first couple of pages, and your mind was racing.

“Maybe next time, you should bring some of your muggle books for me to read,” Sirius said as he sat down at the other end of the couch. “I didn’t consider there wouldn’t be much to do while you read.”

You looked up and smiled at him. “I can do that next time, yeah.” Another moment passed of you just staring at each other. “What’s the coolest bit of magic you’ve ever done? Like one thing that is just genuinely so impressive even for a wizard?”

He pulled out his wand and said, “Accio map.” A blank piece of parchment flew out of a desk drawer and into his open palm.

“What’s that?”

“When the lads and I were sixteen, we made a magical map of the school. It was bloody difficult, and I honestly still can’t believe we managed to finish it.” He tapped his wand to the parchment and whispered, “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”

Ink appeared across the page, taking the form of rooms, passageways, and stairwells. And there were footprints with names assigned to them, moving freely throughout the map.

“It… it traces people?” You were absolutely amazed and a little horrified at the violation of privacy this created.

“Yeah, anyone in Hogwarts will be on this map. And the map is never wrong.”

“Wow. What sorts of things did you get up to at school that you needed something like this?”

Sirius gave an evil grin. “We may have been little troublemakers.”

“Not surprising at all,” you replied as you grinned back at him. You took the map from his hands and studied it for a very long time, asking him questions about the different rooms. You spent nearly eight hours learning about magical things with Sirius that day, and once he took you home, he promised to ring you again very soon.


	6. Bowtruckle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone that's reading this fic :D Hope you enjoy this chapter!

The next time Y/N came over, Sirius was worried he had given her a heart attack. More precisely, James had given her a heart attack. They were sat on the couch again, Sirius reading Y/N’s copy of Animal Farm, when James’ head suddenly appeared in the fireplace. She squealed in horror and practically launched herself into Sirius’ lap. If it hadn’t been for his concern about her health and her mental state, Sirius honestly would have been thanking James for being such a spot on wingman.

“Um, bad time?” James inquired.

Sirius untangled himself from the frightened woman and walked over to kneel in front of the fire.

“No, it’s fine. Y/N was just reading some of Remus’ books. What’s up, Prongs?”

“I was going to see if you wanted to do some flying tomorrow. I haven’t been up on a broom in ages.”

Sirius thought for a moment about his nonexistent plans for the next day. “Yeah, all right.” He glanced back at the woman watching him curiously from the couch. “Can Y/N come too? I bet her and Harry would get along smashingly.”

“Sirius, are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“In for a sickle, in for a galleon, right James? She already knows loads about magic. No sense in trying to stop her now.”

“Fine, fine. Perhaps she and Lily will get on well too.”

“You guys do know I’m sitting right here, correct?”

Sirius looked at her over his shoulder and grinned. “Sorry, love.” He turned back to his friend. “See you tomorrow, James.”

The second James’ head disappeared, Y/N gave Sirius an expectant look and said, “Explain. Now.”

“That’ll be the floo system.” He returned to the couch with her.

“Floo system? How does it work and why have you failed to mention it thus far?”

So, Sirius explained the floo to her, and he couldn’t help but adore the intense curiosity and excitement that burned in her eyes. She was absolutely adorable when she was trying to wrap her head around a new magical concept. His brain flicked back to the tingling in his hand, which had been going on for two weeks now without cease. It seemed to intensify when they were apart and calm a bit when they spent long days together like this. Sirius still had no explanation for it, other than the one that Y/N had offered about the Second Principle of Magic; but that had been written by a muggle, so Sirius didn’t see how he would have known anything about magic.

He had been contemplating asking Y/N out on an actual date for a few days now, but he wasn’t sure it was such a good idea. James kept cautioning against pulling her headfirst into the magical world, and Sirius admitted there might be a few complications to dating a muggle. He would certainly have to purchase a telephone for starters. He’d been going over to borrow Lily’s every time he wanted to ring Y/N. He figured he’d wait until the magical world wasn’t so new to her before he tried asking her out. He thought she might be a little petrified if he tried picking her up for a date on his flying motorcycle.

The next day, Sirius apparated to her flat in order to take her to James’ and Lily’s place. She was wearing a lovely sweater that matched her eyes, and it was tucked into some sexy high-waisted jeans that did wonders for her bum. Sirius had to mentally tell himself not to stare.

“You look beautiful, love,” Sirius told her just to see that blush pepper across her cheeks.

“Er, thanks,” she took his hand without hesitation, considering they’d done this a few times now, and he popped them over to James’ front garden.

“Oh wow, this is lovely.” She surveyed the quaint cottage in Godric’s Hollow. A few garden gnomes ran along the picket fence, and her eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Are those some sort of pet?”

“More like pests,” Sirius explained.

“UNCLE PADFOOT WATCH OUT!” a seven-year-old Harry exclaimed from his racing broom. Sirius pulled Y/N out of the path of destruction just in time.

“He was flying on a broom?” she asked in wonder.

“You really have got to learn to stop questioning things, love. No matter how magical and mad something seems, just go with it.”

She giggled. “But then who would annoy you with all their questions? And I’m guessing that was the Harry you were referring to yesterday?”

“The one and only. I’m a proud godfather.”

“That’s wonderful Sirius. I can’t wait to officially meet him when he’s not trying to kill me with his broom.”

Lily popped her head out the front door. “Are you just going to stand in the garden all day, or…?”

Y/N immediately walked over and introduced herself to the woman. Sirius couldn’t help but feel like this was him bringing his girlfriend home to meet his family. Maybe one day that would be true.

They all shuffled into the living room of the cottage, Lily having demanded Harry come inside for lunch. James was currently finishing up some Auror paperwork, and Sirius thought he was insane for bringing that boring shit home with him. Harry ran off to his bedroom, and when he returned to eat lunch, he had his pet Bowtruckle resting on his left shoulder.

“Harry,” Sirius said to his godson, “this is my friend Y/N.”

“Hi Y/N,” he said a bit shyly.

She smiled brightly at the kid. “Hi Harry. Whatcha got there on your shoulder.”

He reached up and plucked the creature into the palm of his hand, holding it out for Y/N to get a look. “This is Leif. He’s a Bowtruckle. I’ve had him since I was five.”

“He’s adorable, Harry.”

After lunch, they all went back outside, and Lily and Y/N lounged in the grass while Sirius, James, and Harry raced around on brooms. Sirius usually gave James a run for his money when it came to racing, but today, he kept getting distracted by the gorgeous woman watching him from the ground. She never seemed to take her eyes off him, and Sirius wondered if it was more to do with her interests in the dynamics of broom flight or her interest in him.


	7. Two-way Mirrors.

You were walking home late from work again. You had enough cash to grab a cab, but after coming across Sirius and James all those nights ago, you sort of liked wandering the dark streets thinking about what oddity you might encounter next. The side street you normally used for a shortcut, the one where Sirius had transformed from his dog form, was currently under construction so you had to take the long way around. You knew Sirius was working tonight, he’d mentioned just yesterday that his boss had given him a reaming for all the paperwork he still hadn’t done. You had been fascinated to learn that what he and James did for a living was basically the wizarding version of a police officer.

Sirius still hadn’t purchased a telephone, so you had no speedy means of contacting him. You usually waited for him to call you from Lily’s, or he would just pop up outside your apartment. You’d taken to spending time with him in the cool March air, him often changing into Padfoot and accompanying you to the park. Magic was slowly becoming a more normal part of your life. You were sure there would forever be things you would have questions about, but it no longer scared you half to death when Sirius or Remus did something outstandingly magical while you were sat on their couch.

You’d been getting on quite well with Remus when you were over and he wasn’t at work. He was much more reserved and studious than his charming, longhaired friend, but that was something you and Remus had in common. Whereas Sirius couldn’t sit down and read more than two paragraphs of a book without chatting, you could sit in silence for hours. Remus seemed like the perfect, wise friend. Sirius, however, made your heart swell and the energy in your fingers pulse electrically. His quirks and constant dramatic storytellings made you crush on him all the harder.

You’d gotten a good look at his chest tattoos the other day. He’d manage to spill tea all over himself when he was getting overenthusiastic about a prank story and waving his arms about wildly. He’d jumped up from the couch when the tea spilled and had hastily pulled his shirt up over his head without thinking. You’d stared in shock at the well-defined abs and pecs, sprinkled with lovely little bits of ink. You spotted Harry James Potter’s name and birthday written on Sirius’ rib. The one over his heart was three animal silhouettes: a dog, a deer, and a wolf. You raised an eyebrow.

Sirius had turned red once his brain caught up with him and he realized he had stripped down right in front of you. He fled to his bedroom to find a fresh shirt, but not before you also noticed the tattoo on his opposite pec: a phoenix. You had thought those were mythological creatures, but considering the odd things you had been introduced to as of late, you could surmise that they might exist in real like after all. When he turned away from you, you saw the edges of another ink peeking out from his pants line on his left hip, but you couldn’t distinguish just what that tattoo was.

Now, you were nearing the road to your flat, a dark-haired woman and her male companion walking a few yards in front of you. You hadn’t been giving them much thought until you heard the word ‘muggle’ slip from their mouths. Your ears perked up.

“Such a filthy race,” the woman said, utter disgust dripping from her tone.

“Don’t worry dear, one of these days there will be an even better dark lord for us to stand behind, then we can wipe the mudbloods and muggle scum of this earth once and for all.”

Your brows furrowed. These were definitely wizards, but they didn’t sound like any of the nice and joyous wizards you had met. They were unbelievably hateful. Perhaps if this had occurred on any previous day before this very one, you might have fallen into your pacifist tendencies and kept completely quiet, but the magical world had brought out a new fierceness in you. You didn’t want to remain polite as you overheard these mean people insult those who were not lucky enough to be born with magic. That woman had called you filthy. That man had called you scum. It made your blood boil furiously.

“Hey!” you shouted at them in your most intimidating voice.

They turned to you with a bit of confusion, both disgusted and startled by the fact that a non-magic person had dared to address them.

“What do you have against muggles?”

“Are you a witch?” the woman asked you, and you could see her hand creeping to the pocket of her robe.

“Doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have no right to speak down on muggles that way. A person has no say in whether or not they’re born with magic, so stop implying that such a life is scum and beneath you!”

She pulled her wand out on full display. It was black and menacing looking, nothing like the lighter colored, whimsical one that Sirius had showed you. “If you’re a witch, reveal your wand.”

You straightened your posture, standing tall in the face of fear. “I’m not a witch.”

“Then how do you know about magic, you filthy little muggle.”

“Don’t call me that! And it’s none of your concern how I know. But tonight has been a real eye-opener because until this point I had thought that having magic automatically made someone a good person. Not you two, though. You’re both utterly vile.”

The evil witch narrowed her eyes and hissed ‘crucio’ with her wand directed at you. It was the most painful thing you had ever experienced in your life. You collapsed to the dirty street, writhing in agony, a blood-curdling scream tearing from your throat. It felt like it would last for the rest of eternity, but soon enough, it was over. You lay there panting, eyes squeezed tightly shut, praying she wouldn’t do whatever she had just done to you again.

You suddenly heard shouts and peaked through your eyelids to see more people on the street, and bright lights erupting from different individuals’ wands. More wizards, hopefully, some of the good ones.

You remained perfectly still, hoping none of the painful magic would be fired in your direction. Once the magical fight seemed to be over, loud footsteps echoed toward you.

“Y/N?! What are you doing here?”

Your eyes flew open because you recognized the lovely, gruff voice of Sirius Black.

“They were saying bad things about muggles, really hateful things, Sirius. I felt like I had to defend non-magical people, but I didn’t know she could do something so awful with her wand.”

“What did she do?”

“I’m not sure, but it was really, really painful. The worst pain I’ve ever felt.”

Sirius’ face looked grim. He helped you up off the ground. “We better take you in to the ministry. You’ll have to give a statement.”

“The ministry? That’s where you work, right?”

“Yeah, love.” His arm was still wrapped around you, helping you walk because your body was shaking so much.

“Did you arrest them?”

“We did, yeah. That was really unwise, Y/N. You can’t go around confronting wizards like that. You never know what sort you’ll be dealing with.”

“But Sirius, you never said anything about evil wizards. I just assumed that most were like you lot.”

“That was a silly assumption to make. Just like in the muggle world, there’s good guys and bad guys.”

“Then why haven’t you told me about the bad guys sooner? That seems like key information.”

“Didn’t want to spoil your fun, I suppose.” He gripped your waist more tightly and asked, “Ready to apparate?”

You fiddled your thumbs in your lap as you sat in an uncomfortable chair in Sirius’ small office in the Auror department of the Ministry of Magic. The man was shuffling through his desk drawers looking for something that was apparently very important.

“Ah ha!” He pulled out what appeared to be a mirror.

“Are you really that concerned about your hair right now?”

He smirked. “No, love. This is a two-way mirror. James has the other one, but I’ll make him give it to me. It should work for you even without magic. All you’ll have to do is say my name while looking at it and you’ll be able to talk to me.”

“Sirius, can’t you just purchase a telephone like a normal person?”

“This isn’t for late-night chats, well I guess it could be for that too if you want, but it’s for you to carry on you at all times and use to contact me if you ever get into a spot of trouble again.”

“I think you’re making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be.”

Sirius’ grey eyes became very fierce as he gazed at you. “I’m not. When I realized it was you who had been attacked, I swear to you my heart stopped. My hand burned like it was covered in sweltering flames. I was so completely paralyzed with fear at the thought of losing you. And losing you because you knew about my world, no less. I’ve got to try to do everything I can to keep something like this from happening again.”


	8. Death Eaters.

“Black. You wanna explain to me what the fuck is going on?”

Sirius was in the Head Auror’s office getting his arse chewed out. “Er, well, I…”

“How did this woman already know about magic, and how did you already know her?”

“Well, er… Sir, she might have spotted James and me apparating one night when we were on patrols.”

“And why didn’t you notify the obliviators and have it swiftly taken care of?”

“She seemed harmless enough. We didn’t want to take away her memory just because she had an innocent interest in magic.”

“So, you started teaching her about magic instead? For fuck’s sake Black. I don’t know why we keep you around here; you’re such a goddamned liability.”

“But Sir, she’s not causing any harm.”

“But she’s gone and done something stupid like try to confront dark wizards because she only has a half understanding of our world.”

Sirius didn’t know what to say to that. He couldn’t exactly dispute the truth.

“Is she your girlfriend or something? Is that what’s going on? Because you know that we have set guidelines for wizards dating muggles, and the protocols say that you have to wait at least six months before you tell them about your magic.”

Sirius got a little flustered at this line of questioning. “No, we’re not dating. I mean, maybe I want to, but we’re not. It’s complicated.”

“All right, I’m gonna go ahead and send a request in to the obliviators to get her sorted out.”

“No! Please don’t do that, Sir. I… I… I am pursuing a romantic relationship with her, and if you wipe her memory now it will just be pointless because I’ll just tell her about magic all over again in five months.”

Sirius’ boss narrowed his eyes at him. “Fine. She’ll keep her memory. As for you, Black, you’re suspended for a week.”

“Suspended?!”

“And you can take all that paperwork home with you to have finished by the end of your suspension.”

Sirius was honest to merlin contemplating quitting at this point rather than having to do all that paperwork.

“Fine,” he grumbled.

“Maybe next time, you’ll remember to follow wizarding laws. They exist for a reason.”

Sirius jerked his head into a nod and left the office without another word. When he returned to his own desk, Y/N was there, playing with the magical paper airplanes that were flying this way and that.

“This is how you send memos around the office?”

“Yeah,” he responded, but his voice sounded bummed out even to his own ears.

“Sirius, what’s wrong?”

With the wave of his wand, he magically compressed the mountain of paperwork into his briefcase. “We’ll talk about it back at my place, love.”

She followed him out of the ministry, and once they were on the street, Sirius apparated them once again. When they reached the main room of his flat, he immediately dropped her hand and went to the potions cabinet. It wasn’t hard to find the two bottles he was looking for since Remus had a very organized labeling system.

“What’s that?” she asked while studying the potions in his hands once he had returned to her.

“This,” he held one out to her, “is a calming draught for you to take because your hands are still shaking from the effects of the cruciatus curse.”

She hesitantly took the bottle from his hand. “And what’s that?” she nodded to the one he was still holding.

Sirius tipped the potion up and chugged it. “That was pepper-up potion because I’m already really fucking bummed out, and we have a long night ahead of us with well overdue explanations about some of the less flattering parts of the wizarding world.”

She suddenly pulled him in for a comforting hug. “Sirius, we don’t have to do this tonight. We could always wait until morning.”

“No, you need to know. The sooner, the better. Plus, the potion’s already kicked in, and there’s no way I’ll be able to go to sleep now. Go on, take yours.”

She eyed it nervously before taking a large swig. “That actually tastes really lovely. I expected it to be horrible. Is it that way with all potions?”

“Nope. Most batches of polyjuice taste absolutely putrid.”

“What’s… nevermind. We have more important things to discuss. You can tell me about polyjuice tomorrow.”

Sirius made tea and grabbed some biscuits from the kitchen. Y/N had snuggled up under a fluffy blanket with her legs stretched out across the couch, clearly already much more calm from the potion. Sirius set the drinks and snacks down on an end table, lifter her feet up, and sat down, allowing her to rest them in his lap.

“Okay, love. It’s time I told you about Death Eaters.”

She looked horrified just by that ugly name. “Death Eaters? What’s that?”

“That’s what dark wizards like the ones you met call themselves.”

Sirius went on the explain the differences between purebloods, half-bloods, and muggle-borns. He told her about Voldemort and the wizarding war that the evil man had started, how he had collected an army of dark creatures and prejudice purebloods to support him. Then, he told her about the Order of the Pheonix, about Dumbledore, about the prophecy that put James’ family in danger. Sirius had a hard time recounting how they had figured out that their good friend Peter Pettigrew was a traitor at the last minute, and James, Lily, and Harry had almost died because of his own stupidity in trusting the rat.

She seemed sleepy but managed to stay awake through it all. Not asking any questions, only listening intently with both horror and sympathy in her eyes.

“So Lily is a muggle-born, Remus is a half-blood, and James comes from a really nice family of purebloods. What about you?”

Sirius stared down at her legs in his lap. He had hoped to avoid telling her this part. He was afraid she’d only be able to associate him with that couple who had hurt her in the street once she knew the truth about his family.

“I’m a pureblood,” he admitted, still unable to look her in the eye. “My whole family were dark wizards.”

“All of them?”

“Well, all of them except for my late Uncle Alphard and me.”

“Oh Sirius, that must have been so hard growing up in that environment.”

He raised his grey eyes to find complete compassion shining in hers. “It was pretty miserable, yeah. I ran away from home when I was sixteen and never looked back.”

“Where’d you go?”

“I stayed with James and his mum and dad. They were always so nice to me.”

She smiled softly. “I’m glad you had good friends to help you out.”

“Me too.”

They fell asleep like that, lounging on the couch together. Sirius felt the tingling in his hand subside almost completely when it remained resting on Y/N’s leg throughout the night.


	9. Kneazle.

You decided to take some personal days from work since you were still a little shaken up from the incident. Not to mention, Sirius was suspended from work, and you didn’t want him to be bored all week without you.

After having been found snuggled up on the couch by Remus, you and Sirius jumped up a little bashfully and pretended you hadn’t just spent the night together. You went into their kitchen and scoured the refrigerator for anything edible to have for breakfast. You finally settled on beans and toasts and made enough for the three of you.

“I can’t believe you got suspended, Pads,” Remus said through a mouth full of beans while sat at the kitchen table.

“James didn’t seem all that surprised when I broke the news to him,” Sirius noted.

“Yes, well, James has been rather uptight lately. Haven’t you noticed?”

“Haven’t I? I work with the bloody prick, he’s gotten worse about nagging than you ever were back in school. It’s been driving me mad. I’m honestly glad to get a small break from it.”

You thought this might be a good time to voice something that had been on your mind since that visit to James and Lily’s cottage. “I think Lily is pregnant.”

“What?!” both men said in unison.

“While you and James were flying together, she and I were chatting, and she kept bringing up stories about when Harry was a baby, saying how much she missed him being that little. Then she kept saying how Harry always complains about being an only child. It was clear she and James want to give him a sibling, and that combined with the fact that James is suddenly super uptight according to you lot, leads me to believe they’re either in the process of trying or have actually succeeded in getting Lily pregnant.”

Sirius leaned back in his chair, completely speechless.

“Wow,” was all Remus said.

“Surely James would have said something to us if that were the case. We’re his best mates!” Sirius complained.

You shrugged your shoulders. “They probably just wanted it to be a surprise when Lily actually starts showing.”

Remus stood from the table and sent his empty plate to the sink with a wave of his wand. “I’m off to work. You two try to stay out of trouble.”

Sirius dramatically placed a hand over his wounded heart. “Stay out of trouble? It’s like you don’t even know me, Moony.”

Remus shook his head in annoyance at his friend before disapparating.

Sirius turned to you. “What would you like to do today, love?”

“Well, I need to pop over to my place to call my boss and then shower. After that, I have no idea.

After cleaning up the plates, Sirius went to his bedroom to change into some fresh clothes and then he apparated both of you over to your flat. You made the quick phone call to your boss and then headed for the bathroom to shower as Sirius browsed your bookcase of muggle texts.

Your bathroom wasn’t connected to your bedroom but rather your living room. To your horror, you’d forgotten to grab a change of clothes before going in, being accustomed to just walking through the main room in your towel. As you dried off and wrapped the towel tightly around yourself, you panicked a little before cracking the door open.

“Er, Sirius? Could you look away, please? I forgot to grab clothes from my room.”

You swore you could hear him gulp loudly. “Sure, love. Eyes are averted.”

You opened the door the rest of the way to find him with his back turned to you, staring in the direction of the kitchen. It felt almost scandalous to be practically naked while in the same room as the gorgeous man, and part of you just wanted to walk up to him and rip your towel off, but you still didn’t think Sirius would be all that interested in an intimate relationship with you. He clearly cared about you, but that seemed to be more as a friend or some sort of magical chaperone as he was the one giving you a tour of all things magic. Someone as fit as him could never be attracted to someone like you.

After vanishing behind your bedroom door and quickly throwing on some clothes, you heard Sirius say that he’d like to take you to Diagon Alley.

“Really?!” you asked excitedly as you flung your bedroom door open.

“Why not?” he answered with a shrug and a smirk.

The magical shops were the quirkiest things you had ever seen. They didn’t seem to follow any rules of physics or structural engineering. You watched children run through the cobbled street, sticking their faces to shop windows and begging their parents for things like new brooms or joke products from a shop called Zonko’s. Sirius led you to Honeydukes, and you realized this must be the place where Remus’s endless supply of chocolate comes from.

It was when you were passing the Magical Menagerie that your eyes lit up, though. There were all sorts of magical creatures inside, you even noticed a few of those Bowtruckle things that Harry had. Large toads sat in the windowsill, countless black cats crossed your path, rats scurried across your feet, and then in the very back of the shop, you spotted a large cat-like creature that had a mixture of orange and grey speckled fur. “It’s beautiful,” you whispered.

“That’s a kneazle,” Sirius explained. “They’re very intelligent and great at determining when a person has ill intentions.”

You looked on in awe at its large ears and lion-like tail. “Can I get her? Please, Sirius?”

“Love, only magical folks are allowed to own magical pets.”

This devastated you, but then a wonderful idea crossed your mind. “What if you get her and keep her at your place? Then I’ll still get to see her all the time!”

Sirius looked a little exasperated at your insistence on going home with this creature. “You do know cats and dogs don’t get along, right?”

“But it’s not a cat, it’s a kneazle,” you pointed out.

“Remus is going to kill me if I bring this back to our flat,” Sirius tried to argue.

“That’s a bloody lie, Sirius Black. Remus told me just the other day that he loves kneazles.

Two hours later, you were back at Sirius’ place with the stunning pet that you named Rowena after the Hogwart’s co-founder you had read about recently. Sirius kept giving you grumpy looks from the other end of the couch as Rowena curled in your lap and purred.

“You’re going to be the death of me, love,” he told you, but there was clear tone of endearment in his voice.


	10. Quidditch.

Sirius thought he might be falling in love with her, and he didn’t know how much longer he could hold off from saying something. It was lingering in the air every time they walked to the park together. It was at the tip of his tongue each moment that he watched her playing joyfully with Rowena. It was almost blurting from his mouth as he snuck glances of her while she read. It was shining in his eyes as they made multiple more trips to Diagon Alley and she insisted on visiting every different magical shop. It was coursing through his veins on the few occasions they had somehow ended up in a cuddle on the couch. It was in that familiar magical tingle in his right hand each time that they touched.

His love for her was there. It was growing, and he was bursting at the seams to just shout it for all of London to hear. She was beautiful and kind and curious. She was a muggle, yet the furthest thing from ordinary. Her personality seemed to light up brighter than any Lumos and make him happier than any Patronus. She was his magic, and just as that silly muggle principle had said, she would continue to act on him even when they were apart.

Sirius had been back at work for a few weeks now, still confined to desk duty. James was rather peeved at him, but as a way to buy his mate’s forgiveness, he had bought some bloody good quidditch seats for the match this weekend. He got enough for James to bring Lily and Harry along. He also got some for Remus to bring along this new guy he had been seeing. And of course, he got a ticket for both himself and Y/N.

She had watched him toss around a quaffle in James’ back garden dozens of times now, and she’d even been witness to a seeker’s match between them before, but never yet had she gotten to experience the true wonderment of a real quidditch match.

He thought he might tell her today. He had a plan. While they were sat in sky-high seats, nearly as good as the minister’s box, and professional flyers were whipping through the air just in front of them, he would take her hand in his, give her that charming smile that he’d been rehearsing since he was thirteen, and then he would tell her that he was falling in love with her. He would ask her to be his girlfriend. It would happen today. Sirius was sure of it.

He only hoped she would say yes.

Harry was on a whole other level of excitement for the match. When Sirius, Y/N, Remus, and Collin (Remus’ boyfriend) met James’ little family at the entrance to the pitch, Harry was bouncing around like he’d been hit with a jelly-leg jinx.

“Excited to watch Puddlemore win another match?” Sirius asked the boy.

“I’m rooting for the Harpies, Uncle Pads,” Harry informed his godfather.

Sirius pretended to faint. “Surely my ears must be stopped up. James, what have you been teaching your spawn?”

James and Lily both merely rolled their eyes at their dramatic friend.

Y/N smiled at Harry. “I’m rooting for the Harpies too. I don’t know much about them except that they’re an all witches team. That’s good enough for me.”

Harry looked absolutely thrilled to have someone on his side of the matter. “They’re actually doing quite well in the league this year.” He then went on to tell her about each of the matches they had played so far and how they had faired. Sirius passed along their bunch of tickets to the guard at the entrance, and then they all climbed a seemingly infinite stairway to get to their seats.

He ended up sandwiched between Y/N and Harry, and he thought he might go mad throughout the quidditch game if they didn’t stop leaning around him to discuss the Harpies’ superior flying techniques.

Y/N was fascinated by the bludgers for they were the only quidditch balls that she had yet to see. Sirius informed her that he had played the beater position back at Hogwarts, and she informed him that he was either insane or had a death wish. He admitted it was probably a little of both. He found himself sneaking his arm around the back of her chair and resting it on her shoulders gently. If she noticed, she didn’t say anything about it.

In the end, when the Harpies seeker was inches away from the snitch, Sirius could feel the words forming in his mouth. He thought “This is it, Padfoot, just ask the woman out already. It’s not like you haven’t had loads of witches before.” But that was the thing, this one wasn’t a witch, and that made things far more delicate and complicated. She was counting on him to be her connection to the magical world. What if she only wanted to be friends, and he made things awkward by confessing his love for her? Then she might feel like she couldn’t learn about magic anymore. Even worse, she might feel like she couldn’t come to his flat and visit Rowena.

Still, when they were leaving the pitch after the Harpies had won and then heading to the Leaky Cauldron to all grab a bite together, Sirius thought he might just take the risk and ask her anyway. He could feel the nerves building in his chest. The group sat down at a large table, and as the others were chattering around them, Sirius took Y/N’s hand in his. She looked at him fondly, and he opened his mouth to finally release those words.

And then James was clinging a fork against the edge of his butterbeer glass and saying “Lily and I have an announcement to make.”

Sirius clamped his mouth shut and looked over at his friends expectantly. Remus and Y/N were looking on with just as much anticipation.

“I’m pregnant!” Lily finally said.

Because the three of them had already been prepared for this possibility, they weren’t shocked in the slightest and all let out shouts of congrats and excitement.

Sirius thought now certainly wasn’t the time to be asking Y/N out when they were celebrating James and Lily’s upcoming addition to the family. He would find some other time to tell her how he felt.


	11. Invisibility Cloak.

You were rather enthusiastic about spending a day with your good friend Harry and his godfather, the bloke you fancied, Sirius Black. Lily and James were having a formal dinner with Lily’s parents and her sister and brother-in-law to announce her new pregnancy. Since Harry was at the age where he often performed erratic bits of uncontrolled magic, they thought it best that he stay home. Sirius hadn’t seemed too eager to be stuck on babysitting duty until you had volunteered to join him.

There had been a few moments with Sirius over the past few weeks where you had felt a sort of romantic tension between the two of you, moments where you thought he might kiss you or confess that he feels for you the same way you feel for him. It hadn’t happened though, and the moments had fizzled away. You didn’t know if you’d get any alone time with him today considering there would be a magical eight-year-old running around, but you thought there might be a chance the two of you could finally talk about this connection you had been feeling.

“Right then, all the important phone numbers are on the list hanging on the refrigerator. We’ll be back around ten. There’s plenty of things in the pantry to cook up. James? Is there something I’m forgetting?” Lily rambled on.

“No dear, I think that’s everything,” he said as he kissed the top of his wife’s red hair. He looked to his best friend. “Pads, do not encourage Harry to get up to any trouble. Please, I’m begging you.”

“Come on, James. How’s little Harry going to survive Hogwarts if you haven’t even taught him how to pull a good prank yet?”

“No pranking, Sirius. I mean it,” Lily said with her eyes narrowed at the grinning man.

“Don’t worry, Lily. I’ll keep them in line,” you assured her.

The couple joined hands, and then they were gone with a loud pop.

You turned to Harry and asked, “Want to help me prepare the food?”

“If we can have treacle tart for dinner,” he replied sweetly.

“Or we can have stew for dinner and treacle tart for dessert. How’s that?”

“That’ll do, I suppose,” he conceded.

“Off to wash your hands then.” He disappeared to the washroom.

“How about you, Sirius? Gonna help with dinner?”

“Nah, I think I’m going to try to figure out how to work this television thing and pick out a movie to watch after we eat. Is that okay?”

You smiled at him. A movie together on the couch sounded wonderful, even if Harry would be there too. “That’s perfect.”

You and Harry managed to make quite a mess in the kitchen. The kid clearly had no prior culinary training, and he thought it was rather amusing to spill things. His magic would appear in random spurts, sending ingredients flying across the room. You couldn’t find it in your heart to be mad though, it was all rather entertaining. You’d simply ask Sirius to clean it up with magic before James and Lily returned.

After hearing Sirius cursing at the TV for a good half-hour, it seemed that he finally managed to properly operate it. Once the three of you finished dinner, you had asked Harry if he wanted to watch a film, but he said he’d rather go to his room and build Lego structures with his pet bowtruckle. You thought it was rather nice that his parents introduced him to muggle toys just as much as magical ones.

Sirius selected a movie called The Outsiders, one that was a few years old and you had only ever seen one time when it first premiered. You teased him about how similar he was to the Greasers in the film, and he teased you for fancying a couple of the actors. Near the end of it, you ended up with your head resting on his shoulder and his arm draped around you.

It was just coming to the part where Johnny was dying, tears were streaming down your cheeks, when a loud “Booo!” sounded right in front of you from an invisible source.

It had startled Sirius as well, his shoulder lurching beneath your head just before you sat up. “Bloody hell! Harry! You know you’re not allowed to go through your father’s things.”

“You’ll never find me, Uncle Pads,” the invisible voice said from behind the couch now.

“God dammit, take the cloak off now, Harry James Potter,” Sirius ordered.

You could hear the boy giggling wickedly in response.

“James has a cloak of invisibility?” you wondered aloud.

“Yeah, and it’s supposed to be off-limits to little shits that aren’t even of Hogwarts age yet.” He was stalking around the living room now, arms flailing out around him, trying to find the hidden boy.

“Harry, if you’re not supposed to have it, then you better listen to Uncle Padfoot and take the cloak off.”

“But I just wanted to play a game of hide and seek,” he called out from the kitchen now.

Sirius ran in there, and you got up from the couch to follow.

“Can’t you retrieve it with your wand?” you asked him as he continued to feel around at empty air.

“Nope. It can’t be Accio’d. It’s protected against those sorts of things.”

This went on for twenty minutes: Harry sneaking from one room of the house to another, letting out little giggles or taunts every now and then, and you and Sirius trying desperately to locate the menace of a child. Finally, the two of you gave up, collapsing on the living room floor. You sat side by side with your backs against the couch.

“Looks like James and Lily’s child is going to be invisible forever,” you noted.

“Eh, he’ll lose his nerve as soon as his mother gets home,” Sirius said with certainty.

“This was… not how I saw this evening going, but I guess I never know what to expect when it comes to you magic folk.” You turned to him, studying his beautiful jawline intently.

He turned to you as well, meeting your eye. “Yeah… go out with me.”

“Pardon?”

His eyes flickered away nervously for a second, but then they returned to meet yours with burning courage. “Will you go out with me? On a date? I know we come from two drastically different worlds, but I’m mad about you, love. I want to take you out, and do this properly.”

“Yes,” you practically whispered.

“Yes?”

“Yes,” you said a little louder this time, a full smile creeping across your face.


	12. Engorgio.

He took her to some upscale wizarding restaurant. He wasn’t sure why that was the place he chose considering it wasn’t the type of place either of them would typically frequent. She dressed up nice in a dress Sirius had never seen on her before. He wore his best dress-robes, and she told him he looked very handsome after also mentioning that wizarding robes were the oddest things.

Instead of simply apparating into her flat like he had many times before when they hung out, Sirius rang her doorbell and waited outside with a bouquet of flowers for her to answer it like the proper gentleman he was. He may have had shit for parents, but he knew how to be charming and woo a lady.

Impressed she was. She fawned over the flowers and ran back into her kitchen to stick them in a vase full of water. She bit her lip and grinned bashfully at Sirius when he told her how gorgeous she looked. When she took his elbow for them to apparate to the restaurant, he could tell by the trembling in her fingers that she was just as nervous as he was.

Dinner was awkward for some reason, and it took Sirius a while to pinpoint exactly why. Neither of them was comfortable in stuffy clothes and posh dining. They had built their relationship with days spent on Sirius’ couch cuddling. He was stupid to think that a restaurant like this would be the least bit enjoyable for a first date.

The food was good though. Y/N seemed much happier when their plates were magically delivered to their table. Sirius reached across and placed his hand over the top of hers, tracing the back of it with his thumb, and smiling at her as she slurped creamy pasta into her mouth. They made small chat, and then Sirius insisted on sharing the most decadent dessert that the place had to offer.

It was over heaping spoonfuls of some sort of butterscotch cake that Sirius finally noticed the look in her eye change from nervous to lustful. He didn’t usually ask a woman to hop into bed with him on a first date, regardless of his reputation, but this woman was different. He felt like he knew her better than the wand he’d had since he was eleven. This wouldn’t be a simple fling. They wouldn’t be merely friends anymore, but they wouldn’t be just lovers either. They’d be both, and Sirius had a good chance of feeling complete for the first time in his entire life.

“Want to get out of here?” he asked her in a low tone.

“My roommates back in town. We can’t go to my place,” was how she answered him.

He glanced at his watch. “Remus should still be at work for a while,” he informed her.

She grinned. “Your place it is.”

After paying their tab, they walked out of the restaurant together and Sirius apparated them from the busy street to his empty flat. Their hands and lips were on each other as soon as the slight disorientation that always came with apparition had passed. Sirius discovered that kissing her was by far the best bit of magic he’d ever practiced in his lifetime.

They stumbled to the bedroom, losing articles of clothing as they went. Everything was so fast and hot and passionate that Sirius didn’t even realize the tingle in his hand had vanished until they were lying next to each other panting on his bed.

“That was fantastic, Sirius,” she whispered.

“Likewise,” he said with a smug smile. “Hey, has the tingling in your hand stopped?”

She glanced down at her hand, and her eyes widened in realization. “It has.”

“Do you think… is it because we….”

“Because we shagged? Surely not. I think it has more to do with the magic between us. It’s been affecting us both all along, but we were unable to admit it before, so the tingling in our hands was a reminder. Now, we don’t need a reminder to acknowledge the magic that’s building here.”

“Maybe,” he replied without really thinking about it. He didn’t have much concern over the strange feeling that had been in his hand; all he cared about now was the woman stretched out next to him looking like a beautiful goddess. He had good friends, a good job, and now a wonderful person to share his time with. Sirius Black’s life was turning out rather splendid after all.

He leaned over her once more, placing heated kisses along her collarbones. “Want to go again?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” she answered.

The next morning, Sirius found a shirt and some comfy pants for Y/N to slip into so that she didn’t have to put that dress back on. They wandered into the kitchen together, and both of them ended up settling on bowls of cereal for breakfast.

Sirius was sipping from a hot cup of tea when Remus entered the room. “Sounds like you two had a good night. Could have sworn I heard you mumbling ‘engorgio’ a few times, Pads.”

The man in question nearly died from choking on his scalding tea. “Bugger off, Moony,” he said once he finally regained his composure.

“What kind of spell is ‘engorgio’?” Y/N asked, genuinely curious.

Sirius reddened at the thought of having to explain it to her.

“It’s meant to enlarge certain objects,” Remus informed her with a smirk.

She returned his smirk and said, “I think you must be mistaken, Remus. Sirius certainly has no need for those sorts of spells.” She then turned to the man who had spent practically all night making love to her and winked.

It was Remus’ turn to redden. “That was far more information than I needed, thanks.”

“You’re the one that brought it up,” she quipped.

Remus grabbed his own bowl from the cupboard and filled it with cereal. As he sat in the third chair at the small kitchen table, he asked, “So how’d this happen, then?”

Sirius bit his lip, looking nervously at the woman he adored and tucking a strand of his long hair behind his ear. “That night she and I babysat Harry, I, er… finally got the nerve to ask her out.”

“I’m guessing you said yes?” Remus remarked sarcastically to Y/N.

“Who could say no to a charming man such as Sirius?” She admitted with a fond smile.


	13. Werewolf.

By this point, you thought you’d learned everything there was to learn about magic. The good and the bad. What you hadn’t realized was there were still some aspects of magic that were downright ugly.

It had been a few weeks since your first date and first night in bed with Sirius. You spent many of the evenings since then with him, doing the things you usually did like walking to the park or reading on the couch. But now, these activities were interspersed with lovely snogging sessions and sometimes detours to the nearest bedroom. Any days that you and Sirius were too busy with work to see each other, you still talked before bed using the mirror that he had given you.

One morning you’d been tangled together in your own bed, contemplating getting up for some tea.

“Thanks for letting me stay at your place these past few nights,” Sirius muttered into your wild hair that was spread out around you. His didn’t look much better.

“You know I don’t mind. I quite like having my bed full of sexy wizard.”

He grinned before lowering his head and nipping at your neck playfully.

“Moony’s always just in such a cranky mood around the full moon. If I’m around, all we do is bicker.”

Your hand had been caressing the muscles of his lower back, but at his words, you paused. “Why would he be cranky around the full moon?” Remus had never been anything but delightful when you’d been around. He’d seemed even happier these days with that boyfriend of his.

“Oh fuck,” Sirius said as he collapsed back into your mattress.

“Sirius, is there something you’re keeping from me again?”

He groaned and covered his face with his hands. “It wasn’t that I was purposefully keeping it from you. I simply forgot that I hadn’t told you already.”

“And what hadn’t you told me?” you were climbing out of bed now and searching through your dresser from some clothes. Irritation was running through your veins. You’d thought things had been one hundred percent honest since your run-in with the Death Eaters. But here you were, months later, still in the dark about something.

“Okay, don’t freak out but… Remus is a werewolf.”

You could tell by the look on Sirius’ face that he was bracing for a blow-up reaction from you.

You pulled a T-shirt over your head before saying, “Great. Can you leave please?”

Sirius sat up rather quickly and then put a hand to his head, clearly regretting the sudden blood rush he had caused. “Leave? Darling, what are you talking about? Surely you’re not ending it simply because my best friend and flatmate is a werewolf.”

“First of all, I never said I was ending it. I just need some time alone to think. And this certainly has nothing to do with Remus. I’ll have a chat with him about it later, and I’m sure everything will be fine. This has to do with the fact that you continue to hide things from me because you think you have to protect me like I’m some tiny child.”

He was walking toward you now, trying to pull you into his arms. “I swear to you I wasn’t intentionally keeping it from you. It just slipped my mind.”

“Then why’d you seem so regretful when the thing about the full moon came out of your mouth. Still sounded like you really didn’t want to tell me about it. Sometimes, it feels like no matter how many books I read or magical places you take me to, I’ll never feel like a real part of your world. I’ll always be an outsider that doesn’t fully understand all the things you’ve grown up around. What happens when you fall for some witch that gets you far better than I ever could?”

“Y/N, that won’t happen. I promise you. I love all the muggle things about you. I have no qualms about the fact that you’re not magic.”

Your self-doubt was getting to you though. You still couldn’t see how this wonderfully magical man could be satisfied by ordinary you.

“Please, Sirius, just leave. I’ll talk to you after I’ve had some time to think.”

He looked at you sadly one more time. You averted your gaze.

“All right,” he conceded. After slipping into his clothes from the night before, he apparated away, presumably to his own flat.

By way of calling Lily’s telephone and having her owl Remus for you, you arranged to meet the man at a nearby teashop. As soon as he joined you at the table you had already claimed, you blurted, “Sirius told me about your condition.”

“You mean…?”

“The one that revolves around the full moon,” you said in a quieter voice.

Remus took a large sip of his English Breakfast. “To be honest, I had assumed you’d known for a while. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you sooner.”

“Me too,” you said grumpily. “He only told me this morning by accident. He’s still been hiding magical things from me, and it’s starting to grate on my nerves. We had a fight about it.”

“To be fair, I think Sirius cares about you so much that he’s trying not to scare you away with the ugliest parts of the magical world.”

“But I’m a grown woman, Remus, and it feels like he’s being far too overprotective about things.”

“Maybe so. You’ll have to settle that with him. I’m guessing you arranged this tea date because you had some questions for me?”

“A few, yeah,” you told him.

He explained to you that he wasn’t a danger to society anymore because of the Wolfsbane potion. He recounted the story of how he got bitten, and then you learned that Sirius and James had become animagi to help Remus survive his time at Hogwarts. This bit of information warmed you up a little to the man you had been rather peeved at.

You felt very horrified though at the thought of Remus being bitten when he was merely a young child. You couldn’t imagine the amount of pain this man must have endured throughout his life to this point. The existence of werewolves was and ugly part of the wizarding world for sure, but only because it often ruined the lives of those undertaken by the disease. You could feel nothing but more love in your heart for Remus after hearing his story.


	14. Divination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SOOOO sorry it's taken me this long to update this fic :/ I had planned to get the final chapter up tonight as well, but it's looking like I'm not gonna be able to finish it until tomorrow. But I promise to post Chapter 15 tomorrow, no matter what!!

Sirius hadn’t heard from Y/N since she’d kicked him out of her flat yesterday. Remus had come later that day and rolled his eyes at the sight of his friend curled up on the couch with the Kneazle Rowena. “Why didn’t you tell her ages ago, Padfoot?’

“Why didn’t you?” Sirius countered.

“She’s your girlfriend, and she was always your friend first. You know I’m not ashamed of my condition anymore, so I figured you would have said something about it already.”

“I’m sorry, Rem. There was a terrible part of me that was keeping it from her because I thought it might scare her away for good.”

“You should know by now that she’s a better person than that. Isn’t that why you’re in love with her? Because she’s kind and non-judgmental and has such a big heart?”

“Of course. I just lost my head and thought she wouldn’t be able to handle it. I made a mistake.”

“Then maybe tell her that instead of using the excuse that you ‘forgot’ to tell her about it,” Remus pointed out.

“Ugh. Why are you always so wise, Moony? It’s not fair.”

“Somebody’s gotta make up for the brain capacity that you and James are seriously lacking.”

“I resent that.”

Now, Sirius was pacing his bedroom, trying to think of the best strategy for earning her forgiveness and proving that he loved every last muggle thing about her. He wasn’t even sure how to get her to speak to him right now; she’d seemed pretty closed off to conversation when she asked him to leave.

There was one trick he had up his sleeve though: Y/N could never say no to Padfoot.

He apparated near her apartment and then transformed into his animagus form when he was sure nobody was around to see. He trotted the rest of the distance to her flat, black tail wagging excitedly. When he reached her door, he let out a few large barks and scratched at the handle.

“What in the— Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she said when she realized it was her boyfriend in the shape of a dog.

He made sure to let his tongue fall out all dopily as he stared up at her with his big dog eyes.

“All right, fine. We’ll walk to the park,” she said in an exasperated tone.

She was silent as they walked, watching Sirius as he ran far ahead of her and then ran back. He kept brushing against her hand, trying to get her to pet him, but she was having none of it.

Eventually, they ended up a park bench hidden by shrubs and lush trees. “If you expect me to talk things out with me, you’re gonna have to be a human, Sirius,” she scolded him.

Padfoot turned his head about, looking to see if anyone was watching.

“The coast is clear,” Y/N informed him.

He transformed and sat down beside her on the bench.

“I made a mistake,” he started with. She remained silent.

“You’re right that I thought I needed to protect you from certain pieces of information. I’ve felt that way since we first met and you made me tell you about magic. But it came from a place of love, I swear. I grew up around terribly cruel people. Throughout my childhood and the war years, I’ve see every last ugly part of the wizarding world. It is a wondrous place, sure, but it can also be a horrible place. I just didn’t want to lose you if you knew exactly how dark my world could be.”

Still, she did not speak.

“I realize how wrong that was now. You are so wise and strong and caring, and I should have known from the start that you would never stop wanting to be in my life or Remus’ or the Potters’ just because of these dark details. You’re amazing, and I love that you’re a muggle. I love the way you look at my world with such fresh eyes. I don’t want a witch, I want you.”

“You promise that if you think of something else I wasn’t aware of, you’ll tell me right then?”

Sirius pulled her hand into his lap, holding it tightly in his own. It comforted him beyond belief. “I promise, love.”

She leaned over and kissed him then, sealing the deal with the heated press of their lips. Sirius vowed to do better, to make her feel comfortable and secure as a permanent fixture in his wizarding life.

They walked through the muggle shop streets near Y/N’s apartment, her telling Sirius all about the conversation she’d had with Remus the previous day.

When Sirius spotted a fortuneteller’s shop, a thought occurred to him. “Have you read anything about divination, love?”

“I skimmed through this one book on magical prophecies, but it sounded like a lot of rubbish to me.”

Sirius laughed. He didn’t think there would ever be anything magical that wouldn’t impress her, but she’d already proven him wrong.

“It is rubbish mostly. There are some Seers who truly have the gift, but they’re very rare. The whole crystal ball and tea reading thing really have no relevancy though, just like with muggle fortunetelling.”

“Have you been to a muggle fortuneteller before, then?”

“The lads and I went one time right out of Hogwarts. We were all slightly pissed and got a real chuckle out of it. She told James he would never marry, and it caused him to have a sort of panic attack about his prospects with Lily.”

“That’s hilarious.”

“I remember her telling Remus that he’d fall madly in love with a busty blonde. Funny that Remus doesn’t much fancy those individuals with breasts.”

Y/N let out another pleasant giggle. “And what did this fortuneteller have to say about you?”

“She said I’d live a life of crime, spend a good portion of my days in prison. Can you believe that? I’m an Auror for merlin’s sake.”

“Well, I’m rather glad it was all a load of rubbish then.”

He pulled her in for a hug and kissed her forehead tenderly. “Me too, darling.”


	15. Lumos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read this! :)

Harry was turning eleven. The kid had been a wild fixture in your life for several years now. Everyone had agreed to at Diagon Alley for Hogwarts shopping and a birthday lunch and ice cream. You honestly couldn’t believe he wouldn’t be around for most of the year, instead making friends and honing his magical skills at the mysterious wizarding school that you’d heard so much about from your boyfriend. Sirius was pretty saddened by Harry’s quick growth as well. It seemed he thought this day would never come, and you wondered if Harry’s godfather was taking it harder than Harry’s own parents were.

When you and Sirius finally found the Potters, they were trying to explain to Harry that first years couldn’t have their own brooms as Harry begged for the latest model of the Nimbus. You watched with a smirk as Sirius knelt down and whispered something into the preteen’s ear that immediately shut him up.

“What are you up to, Padfoot?” James asked.

“Nothing at all, Prongs. I simply told him to listen to his mum and dad.”

Both Lily and James just shook their heads, knowing full well that wasn’t at all what Sirius had told Harry.

“Oi! There you lot are. I’ve been looking around for ages,” Remus’ voice called from behind you.

You turned to find him standing hand-in-hand with Colby, his latest boyfriend. Since you’d met him, Remus hadn’t had a relationship that had lasted longer than six months. You wondered if he pushed them away before he ever had to tell them about his condition. He claimed not to be ashamed of it, but sometimes, actions spoke louder than words.

Harry ran to Remus, giving him a firm hug around his waist. “Can you believe I’m going to be at Hogwarts this year, Uncle Moony?”

“Well, you’re practically a grown man now, Harry. Is that a beard coming in on your chin?” He playfully examined Harry’s face, and the boy swiped his uncle’s hands away.

“It is not! Dad says I probably won’t get facial hair until I’m sixteen.”

“Ha! Sixteen?!” Sirius belted out a laugh. “Prongs here didn’t get a single whisker until he was nearly twenty. It’ll be a miracle if you have a beard at Hogwarts, Harry.”

You caught a glimpse of James’ cheeks turning slightly pink. “What would you like to do first, birthday boy?” he asked his son in an effort to change the subject.

And so, Harry led them around Diagon Alley all day long. He convinced his parents to let him get a few interesting items from the joke shop. Remus purchased him a beautiful snowy owl for his birthday, which Harry named Hedwig. They all ate lunch together at the Leaky Cauldron, and then they helped Harry find all the supplies he would need for school. You found it interesting, seeing all the first year books he carried in his arms, and the pewter cauldron that James was now lugging. The most magical moment, though, was when you all shuffled into Ollivander’s to watch Harry select his wand. Or should you say, to watch a wand select Harry.

He ended up with a willow wand just like his mother, but the core was phoenix feather. Each adult in the room beamed at Harry with pride when he waved it about in his hand for the very first time.

When you and Sirius got back to your flat, the one that you had moved into with Sirius and Remus, it was rather late in the evening.

“What was it you whispered to Harry?” you asked your boyfriend.

“Told him I’d by the broom and send it directly to him at school as long as he didn’t mention it to Lily and James.”

“You’re such a bad influence.”

He shrugged. “It’s only a broom.”

“I’m assuming Moony won’t be coming home tonight?”

“Most likely not. You thinking what I’m thinking, love?”

“I thought you’d never ask, darling,” you answered him with a grin.

And then he was diving for you and picking you up, your legs automatically wrapping tightly around his waist. Both of your clothes were gone so quick, you weren’t sure if he’d done it by magic.

And then that gorgeous face with those high cheekbones and unruly head of black hair was kissing and licking his way across your chest and down your stomach as he lowered you onto the bed that you shared. Lower and lower he went, and you couldn’t help but moan as you tangled your fingers through his dark locks.

An hour later, you were in your usual post-coital position, Sirius spooning around you and clutching your hip almost possessively. He peppered sweet kisses over your shoulder blades and the nape of your neck. You hummed appreciatively, loving the intimate connection you felt in these moments with him.

“Do you remember that day that you asked me what the first bit of magic I learned was?” he whispered so softly in your ear.

“Yeah, you said it was the light spell, right?”

“Lumos, yeah. I learned it when I was nine. My parents had already gotten me a wand, but it was my cousin Andromeda who taught it to me.”

“She’s the nice one, right?”

“She’s the best. I really need to introduce the two of you soon.”

“I’d like that,” you told him with a smile spreading across your lips.

“Anyway, Lumos was the first spell I knew, but what I failed to mention was that it’s also the most important bit of magic I’ve ever learned.”

You furrowed your brow in confusion. You didn’t think a simple flashlight was all that life-changing. “How so?” you asked.

“Because it’s so important to be able to find your own light in the darkness of the world. That’s what Andy told me when she taught me that. She said our world was nothing but darkness, so we had to create our own light. That’s what she did when she married Ted, created her own light…. That’s what I’m doing with you…”

Your chest rose and fell more rapidly. Where was he going with this?

“You are the brightest light I have ever known. Y/N, you’re wonderful and glowing, and you bring everything to my life except darkness. Would you marry me?”

It was only now that you turned over in his arms, pressing your forehead against his as you looked deeply into those grey eyes. You didn’t see a speck of uncertainty in them. Sirius loved you, and you were sure of that.

“Of course I’ll marry you,” you told him, and then you emphasized your point with a fierce kiss.


End file.
